Connect with us

RSS

A Jewish guide to the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup

(JTA) — The FIFA Women’s World Cup is underway, with 32 teams from around the globe competing in the quadrennial tournament, co-hosted this year by Australia and New Zealand.

It has been an exciting year for Jews in men’s soccer: In the men’s World Cup in the winter, two Jewish players, goalkeeper Matt Turner and defender DeAndre Yedlin, played for the United States. And in the FIFA under-20 World Cup in May, Israel enjoyed a shocking run that ended with a third-place finish in its first appearance in the competition.

Now it’s time for the women’s tournament. Here’s a Jewish guide to the Women’s World Cup, which started Thursday and concludes Aug. 20.

Are there any Jewish players?

Yael Averbuch in action with the U.S. Women’s National Team against New Zealand in Columbus, Ohio, Oct. 30, 2013. (Jamie Sabau/Getty Images)

Across 32 teams each with 23 players — a total of 736 women — there are no known Jewish players in this year’s Women’s World Cup. Israel has never competed in the tournament.

For Yael Averbuch West, a former star player who is now the general manager of the National Women’s Soccer League’s NJ/NY Gotham FC, the lack of Jewish representation in professional women’s soccer is disheartening.

“At the highest levels, there are not a lot of elite Jewish women playing soccer,” Averbuch West told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

Averbuch West said she is not aware of any Jewish players in the American NWSL, either. She and former teammate Camille Ashton (née Levin) are both general managers in the league, and the NWSL’s commissioner, Jessica Berman, is also Jewish.

“I do think that representation is important,” Averbuch West said. “And because of the lack of representation, I think that that affects up-and-coming Jewish players. I’ve had people say to me, ‘oh my gosh, you’re my favorite player, because we’re Jewish and we don’t see any Jewish players out there.’”

Averbuch West added that with the recent growth of the NWSL — which is up to 12 teams as of 2022 — the idea that there may be no Jewish players is “quite disturbing.”

This hasn’t always been the case. When the U.S. team won the 1999 Women’s World Cup, Jewish defender Sarah Whalen was on the team. She would go on to win a silver medal with the team at the Olympics the following year.

Andres Cantor and Sammy Sadovnik are back in the broadcast booth.

Andres Cantor arrives at the Telemundo and NBC Universal Latin America Red Carpet Event in Miami Beach, Florida, Jan. 16, 2018. (Alexander Tamargo/Getty Images)

Telemundo’s lead play-by-play voice, the Emmy award-winning Andres Cantor, is back in the booth for the Women’s World Cup. The Argentine-Jewish announcer is best known for popularizing long goal calls in the English-speaking world (including a memorable call when his country won the 2022 World Cup on home soil).

Cantor will once again be joined by one of his mentees, two-time Emmy nominee Sammy Sadovnik, who has been with Telemundo since 2007 and covered sports since 1989. He’s a proud Jew from Peru who visits Israel every year.

Despite this male tandem, networks are working to center the voices of women in soccer broadcasts at this World Cup.

Doug Emhoff will be there, too.

Doug Emhoff arrives before President Joe Biden takes part in signing the infrastructure bill at the White House, Nov. 15, 2021. (Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images)

Second gentleman Doug Emhoff, the first Jewish spouse of a president or vice president, is in New Zealand representing the United States.

A self-described “soccer dad,” Emhoff will lead the U.S. delegation in the opening ceremony and will attend the team’s first match on Friday against Vietnam.

While he’s there, Emhoff will also participate in a panel discussion on gender equity in sports. Along with former New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, Emhoff took part on Thursday in a roundtable on combating hate. Emhoff has put efforts to combat antisemitism at the center of his government portfolio.

Another prominent Jew could be cheering from the sidelines: basketball legend Sue Bird, who is engaged to Megan Rapinoe, a longtime star for the U.S. Women’s National Team, shared a photo from New Zealand on Instagram earlier this week.

How many Jews live in Australia and New Zealand? 

A view of a beach in Melbourne, Australia. (Getty Images)

Just under 100,000 Australians identified themselves as Jewish in the country’s 2021 census, which amounts to 0.04 percent of the population. Some estimates place the Jewish population above 200,000. A vast majority of Australian Jews live in Sydney and Melbourne.

The Jewish presence in Australia dates back to Jan. 26, 1788, when approximately 16 Jews — 15 convicts and one baby — arrived in what is now Sydney Harbor.

Today, Australia has the highest ratio of Holocaust survivors in overall population besides Israel, as over 8,000 made their way there to escape persecution in Europe between 1933-1945. The New York Times recently reported on how the country’s thriving Yiddish scene carries on their legacy.

In New Zealand, around 5,000 Jews were identified in the country’s 2018 census; the total population is over 5 million. The first Jewish settlers in New Zealand were British traders.


The post A Jewish guide to the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

Continue Reading

RSS

Hamas Says No Interim Hostage Deal Possible Without Work Toward Permanent Ceasefire

Explosions send smoke into the air in Gaza, as seen from the Israeli side of the border, July 17, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen

The spokesperson for Hamas’s armed wing said on Friday that while the Palestinian terrorist group favors reaching an interim truce in the Gaza war, if such an agreement is not reached in current negotiations it could revert to insisting on a full package deal to end the conflict.

Hamas has previously offered to release all the hostages held in Gaza and conclude a permanent ceasefire agreement, and Israel has refused, Abu Ubaida added in a televised speech.

Arab mediators Qatar and Egypt, backed by the United States, have hosted more than 10 days of talks on a US-backed proposal for a 60-day truce in the war.

Israeli officials were not immediately available for comment on the eve of the Jewish Sabbath.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said in a statement on a call he had with Pope Leo on Friday that Israel‘s efforts to secure a hostage release deal and 60-day ceasefire “have so far not been reciprocated by Hamas.”

As part of the potential deal, 10 hostages held in Gaza would be returned along with the bodies of 18 others, spread out over 60 days. In exchange, Israel would release a number of detained Palestinians.

“If the enemy remains obstinate and evades this round as it has done every time before, we cannot guarantee a return to partial deals or the proposal of the 10 captives,” said Abu Ubaida.

Disputes remain over maps of Israeli army withdrawals, aid delivery mechanisms into Gaza, and guarantees that any eventual truce would lead to ending the war, said two Hamas officials who spoke to Reuters on Friday.

The officials said the talks have not reached a breakthrough on the issues under discussion.

Hamas says any agreement must lead to ending the war, while Netanyahu says the war will only end once Hamas is disarmed and its leaders expelled from Gaza.

Almost 1,650 Israelis and foreign nationals have been killed as a result of the conflict, including 1,200 killed in the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on southern Israel, according to Israeli tallies. Over 250 hostages were kidnapped during Hamas’s Oct. 7 onslaught.

Israel responded with an ongoing military campaign aimed at freeing the hostages and dismantling Hamas’s military and governing capabilities in neighboring Gaza.

The post Hamas Says No Interim Hostage Deal Possible Without Work Toward Permanent Ceasefire first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

Continue Reading

RSS

Iran Marks 31st Anniversary of AMIA Bombing by Slamming Argentina’s ‘Baseless’ Accusations, Blaming Israel

People hold images of the victims of the 1994 bombing attack on the Argentine Israeli Mutual Association (AMIA) community center, marking the 30th anniversary of the attack, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, July 18, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Irina Dambrauskas

Iran on Friday marked the 31st anniversary of the 1994 bombing of the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association (AMIA) Jewish community center in Buenos Aires by slamming Argentina for what it called “baseless” accusations over Tehran’s alleged role in the terrorist attack and accusing Israel of politicizing the atrocity to influence the investigation and judicial process.

The Iranian Foreign Ministry issued a statement on the anniversary of Argentina’s deadliest terrorist attack, which killed 85 people and wounded more than 300.

“While completely rejecting the accusations against Iranian citizens, the Islamic Republic of Iran condemns attempts by certain Argentine factions to pressure the judiciary into issuing baseless charges and politically motivated rulings,” the statement read.

“Reaffirming that the charges against its citizens are unfounded, the Islamic Republic of Iran insists on restoring their reputation and calls for an end to this staged legal proceeding,” it continued.

Last month, a federal judge in Argentina ordered the trial in absentia of 10 Iranian and Lebanese nationals suspected of orchestrating the attack in Buenos Aires.

The ten suspects set to stand trial include former Iranian and Lebanese ministers and diplomats, all of whom are subject to international arrest warrants issued by Argentina for their alleged roles in the terrorist attack.

In its statement on Friday, Iran also accused Israel of influencing the investigation to advance a political campaign against the Islamist regime in Tehran, claiming the case has been used to serve Israeli interests and hinder efforts to uncover the truth.

“From the outset, elements and entities linked to the Zionist regime [Israel] exploited this suspicious explosion, pushing the investigation down a false and misleading path, among whose consequences was to disrupt the long‑standing relations between the people of Iran and Argentina,” the Iranian Foreign Ministry said.

“Clear, undeniable evidence now shows the Zionist regime and its affiliates exerting influence on the Argentine judiciary to frame Iranian nationals,” the statement continued.

In April, lead prosecutor Sebastián Basso — who took over the case after the 2015 murder of his predecessor, Alberto Nisman — requested that federal Judge Daniel Rafecas issue national and international arrest warrants for Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei over his alleged involvement in the attack.

Since 2006, Argentine authorities have sought the arrest of eight Iranians — including former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who died in 2017 — yet more than three decades after the deadly bombing, all suspects remain still at large.

In a post on X, the Delegation of Argentine Israelite Associations (DAIA), the country’s Jewish umbrella organization, released a statement commemorating the 31st anniversary of the bombing.

“It was a brutal attack on Argentina, its democracy, and its rule of law,” the group said. “At DAIA, we continue to demand truth and justice — because impunity is painful, and memory is a commitment to both the present and the future.”

Despite Argentina’s longstanding belief that Lebanon’s Shiite Hezbollah terrorist group carried out the devastating attack at Iran’s request, the 1994 bombing has never been claimed or officially solved.

Meanwhile, Tehran has consistently denied any involvement and refused to arrest or extradite any suspects.

To this day, the decades-long investigation into the terrorist attack has been plagued by allegations of witness tampering, evidence manipulation, cover-ups, and annulled trials.

In 2006, former prosecutor Nisman formally charged Iran for orchestrating the attack and Hezbollah for carrying it out.

Nine years later, he accused former Argentine President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner — currently under house arrest on corruption charges — of attempting to cover up the crime and block efforts to extradite the suspects behind the AMIA atrocity in return for Iranian oil.

Nisman was killed later that year, and to this day, both his case and murder remain unresolved and under ongoing investigation.

The alleged cover-up was reportedly formalized through the memorandum of understanding signed in 2013 between Kirchner’s government and Iranian authorities, with the stated goal of cooperating to investigate the AMIA bombing.

The post Iran Marks 31st Anniversary of AMIA Bombing by Slamming Argentina’s ‘Baseless’ Accusations, Blaming Israel first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

Continue Reading

RSS

Jordan Reveals Muslim Brotherhood Operating Vast Illegal Funding Network Tied to Gaza Donations, Political Campaigns

Murad Adailah, the head of Jordan’s Muslim Brotherhood, attends an interview with Reuters in Amman, Jordan, Sept. 7, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Jehad Shelbak

The Muslim Brotherhood, one of the Arab world’s oldest and most influential Islamist movements, has been implicated in a wide-ranging network of illegal financial activities in Jordan and abroad, according to a new investigative report.

Investigations conducted by Jordanian authorities — along with evidence gathered from seized materials — revealed that the Muslim Brotherhood raised tens of millions of Jordanian dinars through various illegal activities, the Jordan news agency (Petra) reported this week.

With operations intensifying over the past eight years, the report showed that the group’s complex financial network was funded through various sources, including illegal donations, profits from investments in Jordan and abroad, and monthly fees paid by members inside and outside the country.

The report also indicated that the Muslim Brotherhood has taken advantage of the war in Gaza to raise donations illegally.

Out of all donations meant for Gaza, the group provided no information on where the funds came from, how much was collected, or how they were distributed, and failed to work with any international or relief organizations to manage the transfers properly.

Rather, the investigations revealed that the Islamist network used illicit financial mechanisms to transfer funds abroad.

According to Jordanian authorities, the group gathered more than JD 30 million (around $42 million) over recent years.

With funds transferred to several Arab, regional, and foreign countries, part of the money was allegedly used to finance domestic political campaigns in 2024, as well as illegal activities and cells.

In April, Jordan outlawed the Muslim Brotherhood, the country’s most vocal opposition group, and confiscated its assets after members of the Islamist movement were found to be linked to a sabotage plot.

The movement’s political arm in Jordan, the Islamic Action Front, became the largest political grouping in parliament after elections last September, although most seats are still held by supporters of the government.

Opponents of the group, which is banned in most Arab countries, label it a terrorist organization. However, the movement claims it renounced violence decades ago and now promotes its Islamist agenda through peaceful means.

The post Jordan Reveals Muslim Brotherhood Operating Vast Illegal Funding Network Tied to Gaza Donations, Political Campaigns first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

Continue Reading

Copyright © 2017 - 2023 Jewish Post & News